I got invited to a seder, it was cool. Here's some stuff.
http://headheeb.blogspot.com/2003_04_20_headheeb_archive.html#93041675(original link has links in text I didn't bother carrying over)
A Muslim Passover? Al-Muhajabah links to an article by Hesham Hassaballa about the significance of Passover to Muslims. In it, Hassaballa draws an analogy between the Muslim festival of Ashura and Passover:
Muslims also commemorate the Exodus of the Hebrews out of Egypt by fasting the ninth and tenth day of the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar. The event is called Ashura, stemming from the Arabic word for "ten."
While this may be surprising to many, it is important to understand that Moses figures very prominently in Muslim belief. The Exodus story is a happy one for Muslims; it is a tale of bitter bondage and hardship and the glory of God's deliverance from that hardship. The Qur'an speaks a great deal about Moses and his dealing with Pharaoh. In fact, around 73 passages?many encompassing several verses at a time?deal with Moses.There is a great deal of debate, however, over whether Ashura actually corresponds to Passover. In Shi'ite tradition, Ashura has lost any significant connection to Judaism, and is remembered as the anniversary of the battle of Karbala at which Husain was martyred. Among Sunni Muslims, for whom the Ashura fast is optional, there are varying traditions of how its observance began.
The origins of Ashura are more commonly associated with Yom Kippur than Passover. The scholar Abu Rehan Beruni, based on his analysis of correspondences between the Jewish and Islamic calendars, argued that Ashura stemmed from Mohammed's observation of the Yom Kippur fast among the Jews of Medina:
It is said that 'Ashur is a Hebrew word which has become 'Ashura in Arabic. It stands for the tenth day of the Jewish month of Tisri. The fast observed on this day is called Yom Kippur. It came to be incorporated in the Arab Calendar and the name was given to the tenth day of the first month of their year in the same way in which it denoted the tenth day of the first month of the Jewish Calendar. It was instituted as a day of fasting among the Muslims in the first year of Migration. Later, when fasting was enjoined in the month of Ramadan it was dropped.Shaykh Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, however, defends the Passover interpretation:
...it explicitly occurs in the traditions that the day of 'Ashura (on which the Muslims are enjoined to fast) was a day of rejoicing among the Jews. As Imam Bukhari has related it on the authority of Abu Musa Ashari, the Jews regarded it to be a day of Eid and it was on seeing it that the holy Prophet advised his Companions also to keep fast on it.
In Saheeh Muslim, also, it is related from Qais bin Muslim that men of good-doing observed the fast of Ashura and celebrated it as the day of Eid, with their women wearing the best of clothes and ornaments [...] In the light of the facts given above, it will be incorrect to say that 'Ashura is the Day of Atonement. Were it so, it would have been a day of lamentation and mortification while 'Ashura, as mentioned in the tradition, is a day of merriment and decoration.Eliezer Segal responds that the celebratory mood of the Jews of Medina doesn't rule out Yom Kippur as the antecedent to Ashura:
In a way that non-Jews often have difficulty appreciating, the Jewish mood on Yom Kippur has always been one of joy and good spirits, precisely because of the confidence that God has indeed forgiven our sins and we may joyfully begin life anew with a clean slate. The Mishnah (end of Ta'anit) describes this atmosphere vividly: "Israel knew no days as joyous as...the Day of Atonement, in which the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in...white garments and dance in the vineyards..."
As to the question of the supposed victory over Moses' enemy on Yom Kippur, it seems clear that the original reference was not to Pharaoh or any mortal foe of the Jews, but rather to Satan (the Hebrew term literally translates as "the Antagonist"). This accords with the traditional Jewish identification of Yom Kippur as the day on which Moses finally concluded the 40 days of prayer and pleading with God to forgive the Israelites for the sin of worshipping the golden calf.
According to the Midrash, it was on Yom Kippur that God finally announced (against the counter-arguments proposed by Satan) that Moses was allowed to present the people with the second tablets of the Law. This story was well known to Muhammad, and alluded to elsewhere in the Koran.On the other hand, the fact that the Jewish celebration witnessed by Mohammed was a fast does not - as some have argued - exclude Passover. One of the "minor fasts" of the Jewish calendar, the Fast of the Firstborn, occurs the day before Passover begins. This fast, observed by firstborn males (and, according to some authorities, fathers of sons), commemorates the slaying of the firstborn Egyptians and gives thanks that the Jewish children were spared. This is a celebratory rather than a sorrowful fast, and it certainly commemorates a "victory over Moses' enemy." It may have been this that Mohammed observed among the Jews of Medina - its observance dates back at least to Talmudic times.
There are other theories as well. Some argue that Ashura marks the date on which Abraham was born, the day Noah's Ark came to rest or all of these. Ali Nadwi raises the possibility that Mohammed might have witnessed a fast peculiar to the Jews of Medina, which may or may not have concerned Moses. Others argue that because the systems of intercalation among Jews and pre- Islamic Arabs differed, Ashura has nothing at all to do with any Jewish fast; instead, the story was "invented by a narrator who only knew that once upon a time Muharram coincided with the Jews' Tishri... but was totally unaware of contemporary Jewish religion and culture."
We'll probably never know for certain. On the other hand, history isn't everything, and holidays are what people make of them. Ashura is already many things to many people, and if Muslims view it as a time to remember the Exodus and celebrate their shared heritage with the Jews, then it is that as well.
Topic: Pesach sameach (Happy Passover)